Recommendations Received for College of Coastal Georgia Presidency

Board of Regents Chair “Dink” NeSmith and University System of Georgia (USG) Chancellor Hank Huckaby have announced the names of the three finalists for the College of Coastal Georgia presidency.

A national search was launched to replace College of Coastal Georgia President Valerie Hepburn, who will serve through June 2013 before stepping down. Dr. Hepburn served the USG in that role since 2008.

The recommended finalists are:

Dr. Gregory F. Aloia, president, Concord University (Athens, WV) from 2008. Prior to his current appointment, Aloia served as dean of the College of Education and professor of special education at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. Aloia was a professor of special education at Illinois State University in Normal. In his time at there, he also served as associate vice president for research and dean of Graduate Studies. Prior to Illinois State, Aloia held professorships at a number of other universities.

Aloia holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside in special education, his teaching credential from San Francisco State University and a bachelor’s in History from St. Mary’s College (Moraga, CA).

Dr. Robert Edwin McGehee, Jr., Professor of Pediatrics in the College of Medicine and Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). He concurrently serves as the executive director of the Arkansas Biosciences Institute, (Little Rock, AR) from 2007. He joined the UAMS faculty in 1993 and was appointed dean of the Graduate School in 2004. He has joint appointments in the Department of Physiology/Biophysics and the Department of Pathology. He has also served on the Dean’s Council at the University of Arkansas Clinton School. In his long association with UAMS, McGehee’s research efforts on the mechanisms of obesity and type 2 diabetes have been continually funded by the National Institutes of Health.

McGehee completed postgraduate studies in molecular endocrinology at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He earned his Ph.D. in Physiology and Biophysics from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock; a B.S.E. in Biology from the University of Arkansas in Pine Bluff and completed his early undergraduate studies at the University of Arkansas in Conway.

Dr. Beth L. Weatherby, provost and vice president for academic and student affairs, Southwest Minnesota State University (Marshall, MN) from 2007. Weatherby served as Dean of Arts, Letters & Sciences from 2004 – 2007 at Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU). She served as interim in that role for two years before her permanent appointment. In her long association with SMSU, Weatherby has served as professor of English and director of creative writing as well as co-founder of the Women’s Studies Program. She has fostered the growth of programs as varied as Environmental Science, Exercise Science, Culinology (a marriage of culinary arts and food science), Hospitality, Creative Writing and the Fine Arts, Agriculture and Nursing, and guided the creation of SMSU’s outcome-based Liberal Education Program.

Weatherby received her Doctor of Arts in English, Creative Writing from the University at Albany (Albany, NY) and a bachelor’s in Journalism from Northwestern University (Evanston, IL).

The Board of Regents is expected to name the next president of the College of Coastal Georgia at a future meeting.